Eastern Connecticut State University receives Davis Educational Foundation grant for faculty development initiative

Willimantic, CT (07/15/2024) — Eastern Connecticut State University received a $281,120 grant in spring 2024 to begin a new faculty development initiative, "Empowering Sustainable Pedagogical Innovation."

The grant was received from the Davis Educational Foundation, established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis's retirement as chairman of Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc. The foundation sent a payment of $112,201 this April and will make the second and final payment of $168,919 in April 2025.

"We look forward to building on the successes of your recent grants and are pleased to support this approach to growing faculty's pedagogical strengths, and in turn, the strength of the University," said Edward MacKay, chair of the foundation's board of trustees, upon awarding the grant.

Eastern has received past grants from the Davis Foundation in 2015, 2017 and 2020 to support learning and faculty development initiatives.

"Empowering Sustainable Pedagogical Innovation" is built upon research-based teaching practices. The initiative includes a Teaching Scholars Program, which will give way to an in-house faculty training program through faculty workshops.

A team of two faculty members and three students will also develop an online tool for best practices in innovative course design as part of the initiative. The program ultimately aims to create a culture of instructional innovation and adaptability on Eastern's campus.

Ben Pauley, interim provost, will be the project sponsor and oversee progress. Courtney Broscious, associate professor of political science, will serve as project director, working hands-on with faculty and developing the Teaching Scholars Program, a pedagogically centered research program for faculty members.

Julia DeLapp, director for the Center for Teaching, Learning and Assessment (CTLA), will serve as project coordinator. DeLapp will manage grant timelines and administration and incorporate Teaching Scholars' innovations into CTLA programs and web resources.

Once Teaching Scholars can mentor other faculty members through their training, students will reap the benefits. "A growing number of faculty will have received support to test out and implement new approaches for fostering student learning," said DeLapp.

"Empowering Sustainable Pedagogical Innovation" and the CTLA will work largely in tandem. Both programs have the same goal. "The CTLA is really about ensuring that faculty have the tools and support they need to create transformative learning experiences for students, and this grant supports that aim," said DeLapp.

Broscious conceived the project idea in spring 2023. "Julia and I saw this as an opportunity to pursue grant funding that would support our own faculty in conducting their own research on teaching that could be used in faculty development at Eastern and to inform the field of higher education more broadly," said Broscious.

The initiative will also serve to reinforce Eastern's new liberal arts core curriculum, which will begin this fall, by "examining new pedagogical approaches that can improve learning within liberal arts core courses," said Broscious.

"In trainings that have already been held and in focus groups conducted by the CTLA," said Broscious, "we learned that our faculty wants to hear more from their Eastern colleagues about what works in their classrooms rather than bringing in outside consultants that are unfamiliar with our student population, institutional culture and resources."

Broscious's impetus for creating a sustainable faculty development initiative stems from her own experience trying to improve her teaching practices. "The only way to truly know if these approaches work better is to study them," she said.

"In a teaching-intensive institution, time and resources to conduct pedagogy research in addition to teaching all of your courses and conducting disciplinary research can be hard to come by," said Broscious. "The idea behind this grant was that we could provide time and resources to faculty interested in studying their teaching practices systematically."

DeLapp hopes that "Empowering Sustainable Pedagogical Innovation," supported by the grant from the Davis Foundation, will "grow (Eastern's) internal capacity for faculty development while shining a spotlight on the effective and innovative teaching happening at Eastern," she said.

While her inspiration for the initiative came from her experience as an educator, "the main goal of this project is to support student learning with innovative practices," said Broscious.

"I ultimately would love for this project to increase student engagement, learning and well-being, amplify the amazing work our faculty are doing in their classrooms and continue to build upon our community's strong commitment to teaching and learning."

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